Friday, 6 January 2017

FridgeCam lets you make your dumb fridge smart with a simple camera

LAS VEGAS—Companies love to debut as many "smart" home products as possible at CES to show that Wi-Fi in anything could make your life easier. LG is a perfect example as it just announced a new smart refrigerator (pricing info not disclosed yet) and the plan to put Wi-Fi in a number of its connected appliances. But investing in the smart home doesn't mean you have to drop thousands of dollars on a whole new fridge or oven. At CES, the London-based company Smarter announced its new FridgeCam, a small circular camera you stick on the inner door of your refrigerator to monitor the food you have.

One of the most practical uses of any smart fridge is the ability to see what food you have (and don't have) even when you're not home. FridgeCam focuses on this: every time you close the refrigerator's door, the FridgeCam snaps a photo of the contents inside. That photo is instantaneously sent to your smartphone in the Smarter app where you can pull it up when you're grocery shopping or on a whim if you want to check your food supply. The camera and app combo is smart enough to know when you finish a certain product, and it'll add that item to your shopping list automatically. In addition, the app will alert you to pick up needed items when you're out and near a grocery store. But FridgeCam is also smart enough to know when you move food around, so it won't get confused and add ketchup to your list when your current bottle is just living on a different shelf.